Defensive back Jeremiah Criddell didn’t play a lot for the Rancho Cucamonga Cougars last season. It wasn’t because of a lack of talent, it was the embarrassment of riches coach Nick Baiz had at that position and Criddell was just a sophomore.

Well with five athletes from the secondary having graduated, four of whom moved on to Division I schools, Criddell will get his turn in a staring role this season for a Rancho Cucamonga team looking to defend it’s Baseline League title.

He is proof you can land attention from major colleges without being a full-time starter. Of course Criddell, a 6-foot-1, 185 pounder, has done all the right things in the off-season to get that attention.

He now has 14 major college offers and the list is growing. Of those 14, nine are from Pac-12 schools with USC and UCLA included in that lot. Among the others are Nebraska and Alabama.

He has made unofficial trips to USC, UCLA, Washington and Alabama.

“I’m looking forward to getting out there and showing people what I can do,” he said. “Of course everyone likes to play but when you’re not you still have try and get better and challenge yourself so you’re ready when they call on you.”

Baiz is confident Criddell will rise to the challenge.

“We always knew the kind of player he is,” Baiz said. “He just had a lot of guys ahead of him. He probably would have started for any other school last year. It’s always frustrating for those guys but he’s only a junior and he knew he was going to be the guy this year.”

The Damien Spartans will start a new season looking for a little redemption. They were 6-5 last season but dropped the last three games last season, including a first round playoff loss to Downey.

Their playoff path was made a lot harder when they blew a big lead late and lost their regular season to Etiwanda 46-42. That resulted in the Eagles getting a better draw and they indeed won their first round playoff game.

“That was a tough way to end the season,” coach Mark Paredes said. “It was too bad because we had a good season. Unfortunately you usually only remember how it ended.”

Rancho Cucamonga and Upland still loom as a formidable 1-2 punch in the Baseline League. But the Spartans could challenge, mainly because of the presence of senior quarterback Warren Bryan who will be in his fourth year as the varsity starter. He threw for 2,825 yards and 25 touchdowns last year, easily leading all Inland Valley quarterbacks.

One of his main targets returns too. That would be senior Mike McCauley who caught 53 passes for 899 yards and six touchdowns.

Perhaps the biggest task for Parades will be finding a running back that can complement the passing game. Last year’s leading rusher managed just 494 yards on the season.

Among the candidates for playing time there are sophomore Jermaine Barner, senior Brandon Correa and junior Cedric Miley with Barner and Miley also probably seeing time in the secondary.

The other good news for Bryan, his backs and everyone else is that Parades expects the offensive line to be the strength of the team this season. That unit includes junior tight end Kyle Thornton, junior guard Mark Garcia, senior guard Parker Elliot, senior tackle Evan Crockett and junior guard Anthony Carrano.

Key players on defense include senior linebacker Mason Burns and junior corner Zahran Manley. The Spartans also got a transfer in senior Jalen Davis who came over from La Salle.

How the Spartans fare may come down to defense.

“That’s my biggest concern because we’re undersized and we don’t have a lot of depth, especially in the secondary,” Pareds said.

Diamond Bar has struggled in the win column. So when the administration went to look for a new coach, they looked at those from winning programs. They also didn’t have to go far.

Kevin Argumosa is the new head Brahma. He comes over after serving as defensive coordinator the last three years at Los Altos, one of the better programs in the San Gabriel Valley. With him comes the veteran Dale Ziola, the coach under whom he worked at Los Altos. So call it two coaches for the price of one.

They’ll reverse roles. Argumosa will be the defensive coordinator and Ziola the offensive coordinator

“It will be great having him there,” Argumosa said. “We’re used to working together and he has a lot of knowledge so it has been a good transition. “Diamond Bar always interested me. We had played against them so I wasn’t unfamiliar with the program.”

The duo will be looking to turn around a program that went 4-6 last year, including a 1-4 record in the Palomares League. The Brahamas last had a winning record in 2013 when they went 7-5 (6-4 in the regular season).

The top returning player is senior wide receiver Shane Wells, one of the top pass catchers in the Inland Valley last year with 66 receptions for 1,105 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was a first team, All-Palomares League and All-Inland Valley selection.

Wells will have a new quarterback throwing to him however as Grant Maestas has graduated. The heir is sophomore Dylan Karanickolas, who quarterbacked the freshman team last year.

They will run the Power-I with some spread formations.

“He has a lot of potential,” Argumosa said. “I’m sure there will be some growing pains moving forward but it is nice to have the potential of having a guy in that position for three years.”

Among the others Argumosa singles out as expected contributors is Jovan Thompson, who like Wells will be asked to play on both sides of the ball at receiver and corner back.

The Brahamas also return two starters on the offensive line which should bode well for the young quarterback. That duo includes seniors Matthew Rodriguez and Matt Reedy.

Other who should contribute big include junior tight end-defensive end Randy McNeil and senior halfback-linebacker Greg So.

The Brahamas make their debut on Friday against Alta Loma, a team to whom they lost to last year 48-28 also in a season opener.

Last season the Alta Loma football team finished third in the Mt. Baldy League. In past years third place was good enough to advance to the postseason but not under the new formula instituted by the CIF last season.

So the Braves (5-5 overall, 3-2 in league last season) head into the new season hungry. It’s also the third year for coach Mark Pasquarella so expectations are higher.

“We really thought we were going to get in last year,” the coach said, “The kids really wanted that so they are a little hungrier.”

Much of the reason for the optimism is the strength of the defense as the Braves graduated just three starters. Leading the charge is senior nose tackle Kingston Toki, whose shorter stature might be the only thing keeping him from landing him a spot at a high profile Division I school.

“We’re really going to depend on our defense a lot until the offense gets its feet on the ground and moving,” Pasquarella said. “We have a lot of guys back with a lot of experience so it’s where we expect to be strong.”

Pasquarella also singled out senior Darin Taylor, who played as a freshman but has not played since, choosing instead to focus on baseball.

“He’s really going to help us,” Pasquarella said.

The biggest change in the offense is that Pasquarella won’t be using two quarterbacks. He did that last year alternating Garrett Kettle and James Josiah with both playing in all 10 games and passing yardage evenly distributed but Kettle has graduated and it is Josiah, a senior, in full control of the offense now.

“He has good leadership skills and he has really matured into that role,” Pasquarella said of his quarterback, “We think he is going to have a good year.”

The offensive line has returning starters in seniors Dylan Vanderkallen and Troy Woods and junior Izaya Spann.Newcomer Gabe Owens, a junior, will help out at center.

Skill position players include junior running back David Ramirez and junior wide receiver Kyle Smathers with Blakely also seeing time at receiver.

Damien senior baseball standout Cody Rawson made a verbal commitment to San Diego State today

Rawson, a catcher, visited the school on earlier this week. He also took trips to Pepperdine and UC Santa Barbara before deciding to head South for college.

He has a cousin that graduated from the school and he knows a couple of players on the team who are from the Inland Valley. He also has family nearby.

“I like the feel that I got walking around campus,” he said,. “You could tell there was a lot of pride in being an Aztec. It’s close to home. Who wouldn’t want top stay in Southern California? I liked everything about it.”

Rawson, who hit .288, said he decided to get the decision out of the way now so he could focus on having a successful senior season and getting the Spartans back to the playoffs.

He plans to major in business/finance but hopes to pursue a career in firefighting when baseball is over.

Samuel Lopez has been named head baseball coach at Summit High School. The move was finalized at Wednesday’s school board meeting.

Lopez served as baseball coach at Bonita the past season. The Bearcats went 15-11 but were only 7-8 in Palomares League play which wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs.

That was his only season at that school. Before that he had spent five years at Carter, teaching and directing that baseball program.

He made the move to Summit late in the school year when a teaching position in his field (health and science) opened up. At that time the baseball position wasn’t open. He took the position to get bring him closer to home.

He lives in Fontana, not far from the school and is a 2001 graduate of A.B. Miller.

“I grew up in this community and it means a lot to me,” he said. “My kids play sports here and go to school here. To me there is a lot of pride in coming back to coach where I grew up.”

Summit is coming off a disappointing 6-18 showing with a 4-11 in Sunkist League play. But it was 15-12 the previous season. Kaiser has always been the top dog in the league and Lopez is looking forward to challenge the Cats.

It’s hard enough going into a new season when you have to replace a player as dominant as Stephen Carr. But Summit coach Nick Matheny is really behind the eight-ball this season because he has had a handful of players, all significant starters, jump ship for other schools.

“We’re basically having to re-invent everything we do,” Matheny said. “The hardest part was that these kids left pretty late in the game so we’re really having to scramble.”

Numbers are down too, something that has been the case at other schools as well. Matheny has just 55 or so between the varsity and junior varsity teams. But the veteran coach is trying to look at the “silver lining.” Other kids who may not have had the opportunity to contribute are getting that chance now and embracing it.

“I can’t say enough about the guys we have here,” he said. “They have worked hard and not complained. I couldn’t be prouder. We have had to do some things a little different because of the situation so there might be some rough waters ahead but we’ll work through them.”

The defending Sunkist League champion SkyHawks (10-2 in 2016) should not be written off quite yet thought, Among the players they do have back is senior quarterback Troy Temmink, who threw for 2,019 yards and 19 touchdowns with only four interceptions last season.

Also returning is one of his favorite targets in senior wide receiver Kavan Johnson who had 21 receptions for 406 yards and five touchdowns.

Summit will be young with just a handful of seniors so Matheny is looking at the experience his underclassmen will get as a huge benefit in the long run.

“We play a tough preseason so that should get us ready for league play,” he said. “We think we can still make a run at the league title. We just have to see how far we come over these first five games.”

The SkyHawks preseason includes reigning Palomares League champ Ayala and San Andreas power San Gorgonio as well as Etiwanda which is a rival and always in the thick of the Baseline League race.

Michael James knows what it is like to direct a winning program. He did that for six years as girls basketball coach at Diamond Ranch. Now he’s hoping to do the same at Claremont.

James, 56, has been named coach at Claremont and looks forward to the challenge of building that program back to respectability. The Wolfpack was just 26-49 in the last three years with an 0-30 mark in league play.

“I have seen some film and they actually have some pieces,” he said. “It is a matter of putting them all together. They did lose some close games. They’re not as far off as it might seem.”

James most recently served as an assistant coach at Walnut, a school at which he has taught health and physical education the last 20 years. He will maintain his full time teaching position there.

His most notable run as head coach came at Diamond Ranch from 2007 to 2013. His teams were 134-43 overall and 53-7 in league play in that stretch with three league titles and three second-place finishes.

He knows that soccer is the big girls sport at the school but is hoping basketball can reach that status as well and looks to do that by startgin at the grassroots level.

“The ideal thing would be to get the girls more interested at a younger age,” he said. “By the time they get to high school they have already chosen a sport so we have to work at bringing them in at an earlier age.”

Ontario will boast one of the area’s top running backs when it takes the field this season – that’s senior Antoine Paul.

The biggest question is will coach John Kusleika have enough tools around the diminutive senior for that to translate into a better showing in the win column. Only time will tell.

Paul, a 5-foot-8, 165-pounder, ran for 665 yards as a sophomore the same year the Jaguars had a quarterback in Cameron Poe who rushed for more than 1,000. And last year Paul managed 1,250 yards , rushing for more than 100 yards in five of 10 games even though the team was just 3-7 overall.

Kusleika does have two starters returning from the offensive line – seniors Luis Guerra and Anthony Gil. He also has a quarterback returning in senior Luis Rivera. The top receiver is expected to be junior Ricardo Soto.

“We’re going to be a team that runs the ball,” the coach said. “But we also hope to be a little more proficient at throwing it when we need to because we have a quarterback returning.”

Kusleika will also be counting on his quarterback to play on defense, which isn’t always the ideal situation. The number of players in the program has dipped slightly so several key athletes will have to go both ways.

“You don’t like to do it but the bottom line is we’re a lot better team with him out there on defense too,” Kusleika said.

He singled out the inexperience of the secondary as a spot that concerns him most.

Making the playoffs is probably a stretch for the Jaguars, given that Atla Loma finished third last yea and did not make the postseason, Don Lugo and Colony are prohibitive favorites for the top two spots.

“Last year we scored more points than the previous year and we were a little more competitive so we’re making progress,” he said. “Hopefully this year we continue to improve.